Gifting

I have a few questions for you:

Did you make any Christmas/holiday presents?

Did you get them done in time?

Did you know it's nearly impossible to get a good photograph of a neutral-colored hat?

I made a new hat for my hat-wearing mom. She likes neutral/muted colors, so I picked a funky gray swirl for the outside and plain black for the lining:

I won't show you the photos I took of me wearing the hat, of my husband wearing the hat, of a squash wearing the hat...  The basketball was BY FAR the best model for the hat!

I love this hat pattern by Betz White.  I've made it before and will definitely make it again.  It's quick and easy and looks so different with each fabric change!

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Pinch Me!

Can it be true?  Can I really be finished with my Lazy Sunday quilt top and all of the millions of triangles in the borders?

Yes, it is and I can!

Now, how should I quilt this?

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Piles of Progress

I stole away for an hour today to try and make some progress on my Lazy Sunday quilt.  I'm at the
"Make eleventy-thousand triangles for the borders" step of the instructions.  I'm starting to see some actual progress:

I'm determined to finish all of my unfinished Bonnie Hunter quilts before her 2017 mystery!

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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A Quilting Gift to Myself

I stole an hour tonight to work on Lazy Sunday.

I'm not sure when I'll get the chance to quilt again while taking care of houseguests for the week, but I certainly enjoyed my hour-long present to myself.

Merry Quilting to all and to all a Good Night!

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Sweet Times

It's the Brown Family Post Christmas Eve Church Service Chocolate Fondue Party

May you enjoy the sweetness of family this holiday season

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Decisions, Decisions

I might actually have time to make a new set of Serviettes for Christmas dinner.

Which fabric combination do you like?

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Unpacking and... Uh Oh!

It's official.  I'M HOME!!!  I know that I'm officially home because I just finished unpacking all of my suitcases and stored my carry-on bag.  I leave for Quilt Con exactly two months from today.  Two. Months.  TWO MONTHS!!!!

As I'm sorting through  my quilts, I found a big Uh-Oh!  At some point in my travels, many people enjoyed looking at this quilt:

 I will admit that it's one of my favorites.  What isn't my favorite, though, is realizing that someone was a little careless with an inkpen while looking at my quilt:

So... how do you remove pen ink from a pastel yellow quilt?  I'm open to any and all suggestions.

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Renaming the Furniture

In my living room, I have a piece of furniture   Some may call it a "rocking chair" but here we call it the "binding chair."

Sadly, this week the binding chair is getting fuller rather than emptier as I get quilts finished to the point of hand binding:

If you look in the background of the photo (and you know that you do!) you'll see the Christmas door decorations that finally made it out but not onto my front doors.  Maybe I'll hang them in between all of the hand binding I'll be doing today?

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Yes, It's really for you

Two weeks ago, I gave away my Starry Eyed quilt. I saw the recipient today and she asked "Did you really mean to give that to me?  It's so pretty!  Surely I misheard you and the quilt was meant for someone else?"

This confirms that the quilt is with the right person in its forever home. 

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Cutie Quilt -- Jack's Star

I've designed over a dozen Cutie Patterns and if forced to play favorites, I'd have to pick Jack's Star as one of my favorites.

I just finished making another Jack's Star quilt:

I made this quilt with children in mind.  The prints on the front of the quilt include Cheezits, polka dots, and monkeys, and the back of the quilt is full of purple hippos!

Black on black quilting is tough to see, so I chose charcoal thread instead:

The wool batting really helps the quilting to pop!

This quilt will travel as a sample for a while, but will eventually be given away once I make another copy for myself.  I can't imagine not having a Jack's Star in my Cutie Quilt trunk show ever again!

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Sewing Room Confessional

I finished traveling for work 14 days ago.  I've had much to do during these 14 days, but I will admit my disappointment with myself for not having checked "clean sewing room and make it a magazine-worthy studio that you never want to leave" off my to-do list yet.

While IM unpacking my travel bags from the year, I'm noticing a few problem areas in my studio (basically, every thing in the entire room).

This is under my cutting table:

The cardboard boxes store my fat quarter collections and the plastic bucket is full of scraps for crumb quilts:

I will always have a bin for fabric crumbs since I love to stitch Victoria Findlay Wolfe's 15 Minutes of Play quilts, but there has to be a better storage solution for the rest of this junk stuff.

Maybe, someday, I'll check off that "clean sewing room " box on my to-do list.  The best I can hope for today, though, is admitting that I have a problem.

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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This Week's Buffet of Quilting Choices

Any time I hear someone say "I bored," I think "They must not know how to quilt!"  I don't think I ever have been or could be bored!

Just look at the quilting choices currently out and in process in my sewing room:

First up is Bonnie Hunter's En Provence mystery quilt:

I am behinder than behind, but I've made at least one sample block of each step.

I pulled out another old Bonnie Hunter mystery quilt to work on, Lazy Sunday:

I am at the "make eleventy-thousand half square triangles for the borders" stage of the pattern, so progress is slow on this quilt just now.

If you loved Cutie Quilts like I love Cutie Quilts, you'd always have one in process:

This is a sample of a yet-unreleased Cutie Pattern. Stay tuned!

When I'm not piecing, I'm quilting.

I can't show much of this quilt because there's a certain holiday coming soon:

Shocking no one, I am using ribbon candy on this quilt.

I have another copy of my Cutie Quilt pattern, Vintage, in process:

This is treasured fabric from Australia that's time has finally come to be used!

I am still working on this happy little baby quilt made mostly from Pat Sloan's Bobbins & Bits fabrics:

When I'm tired of quilting, I can pick a project from my binding chair:

All I want for Christmas is a binding fairy.  Is that too much to ask?

What projects are on top of your quilting surfaces this weekend?

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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My New Obsession -- Periphery Quilt Pattern

As a pattern designer, I make many copies of my own quilts, but sometimes someone else's pattern tickles my fancy and I have to make it over and over again.

Periphery is my latest crush.  The lovely and talented Mary Maguire designed it for By The Numbers Patterns.  This pattern is designed to use fat sixths of fabric, but it is also charm square friendly.

I dove into my bucket of 5-inch squares cut from my leftover bits of fabric and pulled out cool blues/purples and set them in gray fabric.  I seem to be making a bunch of cool quilts lately, and it suits me just fine!

The sun has been hiding since I finished this quilt, so I struggled to get the photo taken in poor light:

Do you love it?

I pulled a bunch of fabric from my stash for the backing.  I used leftover hippopotamus fabrics and some half-yard cuts with the same cool tones:

I had fun choosing the thread for this project:

For the top thread, I used my FabuLux Cuddle which has shades of lavender, light blue, and mint.

I used a DecoBob prewound bobbins for the back of the quilt, but I could have wound my own bobbins as well.

This quilt is a gift for someone who will love it whether it's a simple scrap quilt or a Houston Best of Show Winner, so I felt safe experimenting with my machine binding technique:

This quilt is on its way to a good home where I know it will be loved and slobbered on by puppies.

So isn't this simple quilt just the cat's meow?  I have pulled charm squares for a few more of these lovelies and can't wait to piece them up!

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Do You DecoBob?

There is an unsung hero in most of my quilts.  It is the strong and silent type of hero.  It provides a strong foundation, keeps to itself, and makes my day easier by saving me time.

It's DecoBob thread.  I use it nearly exclusively in the bobbin when I machine quilt, regardless of the thread I am running through the needle.

DecoBob is an 80wt 2-ply polyester thread.  It makes a beautiful stitch, keeps your machine quilting from getting thick when you over-stitch, and the bobbins last (nearly) forever!  I love not having to change my bobbin as often!

I just finished quilting this quilt with FabuLux Rocking Horse, a 40wt 3-ply thread in the needle and DecoBob in the bobbin:

The pastel FabuLux blends really well into this shabby-chic quilt!

The back:

Only the DecoBob shows on the back of the quilt. 

I am now carrying several colors of DecoBob in my online store in both 2000m spools and M-size pre-wound bobbins (boxes of 24).  Try it on your next quilt!

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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I Wish I May, I Wish I Might...

Do you have a wishlist for your quilting?  If you've been following me recently, I wish I had a clean, organized, and beautiful quilting room.  I'm taking steps toward that, but that's not my wish for tonight.

Tonight, I wish I liked my quilt bindings done by machine.  I don't.  I really, really don't.  My favorite looking binding comes when I stitch the binding on to the front by machine and hand stitch it to the back.  Sadly, this takes a bajillion years.  Machine binding is faster, but it also looks different.

I once again tried to like machine binding tonight.  I worked on a quilt where the binding didn't matter much.  I machine stitched the binding on, turned it, and stitched it down by machine.

Here's how it looks on the front:

The stitching doesn't look terrible, but Wow I need a manicure!

Here's how the stitching looks on the back:

Let's assume I get better at binding (I need more practice), that my stitching lines are perfectly straight (they really, really aren't), and that I used thread that matched better (the easiest of the three to accomplish).  Even if I do all of that, I still don't like the look of the stitching on top of the binding.

Once again, I'm back to hand stitching my bindings.  Now I guess I wish that I stitched faster...

What is your quilting wish?

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My Sewing Room = the Bermuda Triangle

Apparently, my sewing room is a close relative of the Bermuda Triangle.  Necessary and important items often disappear and are never seen again.

I keep a list on my desk of things that are lost in my sewing room.  The item on the list that has been bugging me the most is the foot pedal for my sewing machine.  I usually sew without the foot pedal (using the push-button feature) so it's not stored plugged in to the machine where I can use it, but back on November 8 a friend came to sew with me and wanted to use my machine.  After a short search didn't unearth the pedal, I found a compatible foot pedal and she was in business; I, however, was a distracted mess and haven't been able to concentrate on much over the last 6 weeks over all of the "Where on earth is my foot pedal hiding?" noise in my head!

Happily, this happened yesterday:

Here's the full story:

Sunday night, I pulled out fabric to make a new quilt.  I have exactly eleventy-thousand quilts in progress and should really finish a few before I start another one.  I argued the pros and cons of that point to myself overnight and yesterday morning I dutifully re-folded the fabric and began putting it away.  I store my fabric in bins under my Handi Quilter Fusion longarm machine so putting fabric away requires kneeling.  While I was kneeling and returning the fabric to its home, I looked across the room (under the Fusion) at the shelf next to my sewing machine from a lower vantage point than usual.  I saw the foot pedal on the shelf next to the machine WHERE IT BELONGED.  Trust me, I looked there several million times in the last many weeks, but I managed to not see it each and every time.  I stood up, walked to the shelf, and looked for the foot pedal but I couldn't see it; it was hiding under a needlepoint kit.  Why do I have a needlepoint kit?  When is the last time I needlepointed?  How did it come to live on top of the foot pedal?*

That's the story of how my foot pedal was lost and then found again.  I have plans to move this sewing machine and those plans were being foiled by the missing foot pedal.  I searched my sewing room countless times for it.  I called a quilt shop where I went on retreat in June (JUNE!) to ask if I might have left my foot pedal there.  I investigated buying a new one.  I was ready to hand over my credit card to replace it, and then yesterday morning happened.

My Sewing Room = The Bermuda Triangle (Or, Sometimes They Come Back!)

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________________
*Answers: Who knows. Over 15 years ago. That's a mystery for the ages.

Cutie Quilt -- Stepping Stones

My quilting life seems to be all about Cutie Quilts and babies right now.  I combined the two to make this adorable little quilt for a recent baby shower:

I made this quilt from leftover bits of my Share + Share Alike quilt.

I didn't have enough scraps to make the whole Stepping Stones quilt, so I made only four blocks.  I grabbed one of my favorite colors of thread -- FabuLux Midas Touch -- and did some wiggle quilting horizontally and vertically.

This simple little quilt turned out simply darling!

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

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Sewing Room Confidential

I have a large sewing room, but it isn't working for me.  I have too much stuff, too little storage, and I have a bit of a scrap problem.

I save scrap fabrics for dog beds.  I make a small pillow stuffed tight with these scraps and then surround that pillow with batting inside of a larger pillow.  This makes a soft yet stable cushion for the shelter animals.

The piles of scraps are overwhelming:

I have had enough.

Long-term goal:  Make my sewing room into a workable space that I love.

Short-term goal:  Find the foot pedal for my sewing machine.  Yeah, that totally happened.

This blog post is part of the 31 Day Blogging Challenge from Muppin.com.

Check out the other bloggers who have committed to chat with you every day in December HERE.